As
we have seen, beliefs about political authority changed during the Thirty
Years’ War.Cardinal Richelieu’s foreign policy had interposed a new
intermediate between God and the ruler in the devolution of authority and
credibility. This intermediate was broadly described as the political community
during the period and later would become more popularly known as the nation.
However, in the mid-seventeenth century, the political community and the
ruler were viewed as nearly synonymous: as Louis XIV of France proclaimed,
“L’etat, c’est moi.”Over the next one hundred years, two changes
simultaneously occurred to alter this momentary equilibrium. First, God
became less important as the ultimate origin of political authority and
credibility. Natural law and natural rights theorists still invoked the
name of God, but they increasingly argued that these laws and rights would
remain the same with an active God or with an absentee God (or with no
God at all). As God’s role of guarantor of law was reduced, so was the
usefulness of tying His credibility to that of the ruler. Second, the political
community came to possess the inherent credibility forfeited by a receding
God. The political community became seen as the guarantor of natural laws
and rights – without it there would be no order and no security. It was
then seen as credible in its own right, and the rational ruler now appropriated
that transcendent credibility to enhance his own. The transformation of
proto-nationalism into nationalism required both changes and this, in turn,
produced the modern nation-state system. Middle ages and Reformation (see
part 4 and 5 of this partuclar investigation)

God ruler Proto-nationalism
(p. 6) God political community ruler Nationalism (p.7) God political community
ruler. As a result of these changes, every nation or political community
had the potential to be a different source of transcendent credibility.
The number of sources of transcendent credibility in Europe thus grew from
two, Protestantism and Catholicism, to many as political communities that
possessed the power to support their claim to separateness did so. Our
research indicates that the borders between these political units would
also grow more distinct throughout this period. This, in fact, is what
occurred – the nation-state system of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
contained political units separated from one another by extremely distinctive
boundaries. In fact, distinctive borders and territoriality are considered
essential characteristics of the modern nation-state.

Innitially during
the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, political theorists were
far more willing to mitigate God’s role in political authority than were
practitioners and rulers. This is understandable since the consequences
of pursuing untested paths fall only indirectly on the theorist, while
the ruler can occasionally lose his head in trial and error. The constant
rebellions and wars of religion of the sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries clearly demonstrated that the old system had numerous flaws.
Political leaders had several options including reinvigorating Christianity
as a source of transcendent credibility, embracing humanity as the only
source of transcendent credibility, or adopting a source being developed
by political theorists: nationalism. In theory, any of these may have dominated
the others, but it was nationalism that political leaders saw as most advantageous
to their ultimate purpose of generating compliance from the population.

Central to this
decision was ensuring that the population would see the“nation” as
possessing its own inherent (transcendent) credibility that rulers and
governments could appropriate. This part highlights how political theorists
developed the concept of the nation and its inherent credibility out of
already accepted concepts of God and His credibility. Political practitioners
grew increasingly capable of appropriating credibility more heavily from
the political community rather than directly from God. By the time the
nineteenth century arrived, nationalism had either absorbed or swept Christian
theories of political credibility aside in Europe. This had an enormous
impact on political boundaries: nationalism increased the number of sources
of transcendent credibility in the European system, which produced an increase
in the distinctiveness of boundaries between political units, producing
the familiar “borders” of the twentieth century.

Ideological
Foundations of Nationalism

In the aftermath
of the wars of religion, there emerged a growing attitude that directly
basing political authority on God could produce many negative consequences
when there was more than one religious option.542 Understandably, by the
midseventeenth century, government entanglement with religion was frequently
viewed as the primary cause of war. However, since political authority
derived from God, there was no possibility that governments would or could
remain aloof from theological discussions. These necessarily had political
consequences that a ruler could not ignore. Some theorists suggested that
if authority did not depend solely on God, religious conflicts would move
out of the public sphere, thereby reducing the prevalence of war. However,
taking God out of the equation entirely was not what they desired or, at
least, not what the power structures of the time would allow them to say
openly. If the people did not believe God was actively involved, the whole
edifice of social order would collapse.

In short, the
effort to move beyond the conditions created during the Reformation produced
an inherent tension between the desire for peace, which required marginalizing
God to some extent, and the necessity to protect order and stability, which
required continued access to the transcendent credibility of God. The Thirty
Years’ War verified that Europe could not return to single source of
transcendent credibility – neither Catholicism nor Protestantism could
eradicate the other. Thus, international stability depended on separating
God from the political order. This process had already begun in the development
of proto-nationalism, as an intermediate was inserted between God and the
ruler in the devolution of authority.

More distance
was needed, however. The authority of the political community still rested
on its connection with God. Thus, the potential for further religious conflicts
still existed, as the civil wars in England exemplified. Two different
theoretical developments were required to successfully untether God from
direct control over political authority. First, God must be distanced from
his role as a necessary component of political authority. Such authority
must depend on something other than God in order to prevent the conflicts
that had plagued Europe for the past century and a half. Among others,
Hugo Grotius, Baruch Spinoza, and Thomas Hobbes structured their theories
of authority around the idea that, although God exists and plays an important
role in the world, political authority would still be legitimate even if
God did not involve himself. Such theories would begin to marginalize God’s
function in the legitimacy of political authority. This would open a transitional
path for eighteenth century theorists, such as David Hume and the Enlightenment
philosophes, to complete the sidelining of God and argue that political
authority depended on something other than God. However, many practitioners
of politics were unwilling to detach their authority from God without an
alternative source of credibility as effective as God had been. Grotius
and Hobbes suggested reason and science as alternatives. Political practitioners
did not consider these adequate bases for political legitimacy. Rulers
understood that even if such sources effectively generated compliance from
the elite in society, they could never work among the illiterate masses.

Thus, this first
development produced a new puzzle: from where does the government obtain
its credibility without God? The second development of the seventeenth
century was endowing the political community or “nation” with a transcendent
quality that could itself function as a source of credibility for the ruler.
In proto-nationalism the political community had become an important step
in the overall devolution of authority, but it was still seen as a middleman,
not a source of authority in its own right. Further, it was intimately
associated with the ruler, who was seen as the physical embodiment of the
nation. For the ruler to use the nation as a source of transcendent credibility
in its own right, he would need to separate himself from the nation. Only
then could it attain a transcendent quality with an unquestioned credibility
of its own.

Theorists within
this line of thought, such as Johannes Althusius, George Lawson, and John
Locke, had a problem of their own. At least initially, the nation had no
credibility aside from that appropriated from God. The idea of the nation
had to filter through society and become a part of worldview of people
to the extent that it gained a credibility that did not necessarily need
to rely on God. This would take time. In the meantime, God would have to
stick around. Thus, the different lines of thought of Hobbes and Locke
had to develop separately, yet simultaneously, in the seventeenth century.

In the eighteenth
century, however, after many Europeans had been given sufficient time to
acclimate to these two theoretical developments, it was possible for writers
such as David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Johann Gottfried Herder
to begin to unite the separate strands of thought into a unified theory.
This unification underwent several permutations before modern-day nationalism
finally emerged as the dominant theory of political credibility in Europe
late in the eighteenth century, notably following the American and French
Revolutions.

God Wanes Before
nationalism could take hold, political credibility’s traditional dependence
on God needed to be weakened. For this it is necessary to turn to the Natural
Law and Natural Rights theorists of the seventeenth century. These writers
were concerned with what they saw as a direct connection between religious
disputes and the prevalence of international and civil war. Despite some
recent debate over the connection of Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes, they
definitely agreed on one crucial point.543 At a bare minimum, each sought
to demonstrate “how people without theistic beliefs can have a moral
life,” and, by extension, how a government can maintain its only a few
shared, fundamental doctrines are required for humanity, while the other
doctrines should be held loosely, if at all. Most importantly, Grotius
argued that the government had a right (or duty) to enforce these fundamental
doctrines of religion, while it should stay entirely out of other religious
debates.547 To the extent that God did involve Himself in temporal affairs,
he did so only sparingly. If governments stuck to the enforcement of the
fundamental doctrines and ignored the others, religious disputes would
cease to become political battles and the conflicts that occurred within
and between states would finally abate.

In Of the Law
of War and Peace (1625), Grotius revolutionized Natural Law theory when
he suggested that the Laws of Nature did not depend on the constant enforcement
of God.548 These universal laws applied to all people at all times because
to act against them was to act against one’s self-interest (against reason).
Richard Tuck puts it this way: “Given the natural facts about men, the
laws of nature followed by (allegedly) strict entailment without any mediating
premises about God’s will.”549

In effect, Natural
Law was self-enforcing, or perhaps more accurately, reasonenforcing.Whether
God was actively present in the affairs of men or aloof made no difference
in the Laws’ validity or in the nature of human beings. To Grotius then,
the Natural Laws themselves possessed an inherent credibility separate
from God or a political community.550 In fact, the government’s credibility
was derived from the role it had in forcing irrational persons to act according
to Nature and reason. Christians, Grotius argued, have the benefit of redundancy:
credibility comes from both natural rights and from God. However, even
if a group of people were not Christian it was possible that they could
use their natural rights to successfully create a political society.551

This idea was
particularly useful during periods of European expansion throughout the
world.552 However, it was impractical as a source of transcendent credibility
to seventeenth-century rulers, primarily because it argued for a much broader
idea of individual rights (so long as one followed Natural Laws) against
the authority of the government.553 Like Grotius, the Jewish philosopher
Baruch de Spinoza was a Dutch outcast attempting to find a way to cope
with increasingly inflexible Calvinism.554 For both writers, the goal was
not to oppose Calvinism or its institutions, but to find a political theory
that could embrace a plurality of confessions simultaneously. In his Theologico-Political
Treatise (1670), Spinoza sought to accomplish this by distinguishing between
an ideal world and the real world. In an ideal world, each person could
use his reason to clear away the clutter in his mind: “Everyone would
be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed; . . . each
would then obey God freely with his whole heart.”555 But, Spinoza argued,
in the real world most people would not use their reason because they both
despised it and ridiculed it.556 While these people flailed about aimlessly,
cut loose from the anchor of reason, it would be impossible for others
who chose to follow reason to do so. The real world required government
to keep the ignorant people from preventing others’ pursuit of the best
life.557 Government existed primarily for this freedom.558

For Spinoza,
the right for an individual to pursue his best way of life and to live
according to the dictates of reason – in other words, his right to liberty
– preexisted government. A government’s legitimacy depended not on
God, but on how well it permitted its’ citizens to exercise their liberty.
In fact, the opposite was true: God’s legitimacy depended on the civil
government.559 Spinoza then searched history and found “Divine justice
only in places where just men bear sway.”560

However, Spinoza
recognized the importance of religion in the real world. He attached a
Machiavellian argument regarding the use of religion for the purpose of
keeping the common people manageable.561 History had shown that religion
was a very useful means of controlling those who did not use their reason.562
While a minority of the people would use their reason to achieve their
well-being, the rest could justly be controlled using superstition and
religion. Without this power, the society would fall apart in division
and strife.563 A government could command the ignorant people to follow
certain outward observances of religion and rituals, as long as these acts
were in “accordance with the public peace and well-being,” though it
could not command belief.564 This division of the members of society into
those who obey reason and those who do not became an important distinction
in many subsequent political theories.Spinoza was not advocating the removal
of God from the political stage. He was, in effect, arguing for two simultaneous
theories of political authority, one for the ignorant masses of the real
world and one for the minority who used their reason.565

In general,
a government should pretend to rely on the old theories of authority in
which a ruler’s legitimacy was derived from God. But, those who have
chosen to live in the ideal world and who, therefore, use their reason
would know the secret truth that the government’s legitimacy and authority
is actually the result of its ability to protect the Natural Right of Liberty.
Only the superior persons of society could understand such an idea of legitimacy.566

Grotius and
Spinoza provided two examples of political authority as it might have been
(and may still become). Grotius began the task of dislodging God from a
central role in the devolution of political authority to rulers, but his
proposed alternative source of transcendent credibility did not appeal
to practitioners. Both he and Spinoza transferred the credibility of government
to its ability to protect rights that existed in the State of Nature but
that could not be fully enjoyed due to the chaos of that condition. Spinoza
hoped to make his system more appealing to practitioners by empowering
the government to perpetuate the “myth” that older, more traditional,
theories of political authority still reigned supreme. Neither suggested
God played no role in the establishment of political authority. They merely
asserted that his part in the play had already been completed.

The English
philosopher Thomas Hobbes took this idea to its radical conclusion: for
all intents and purposes, the immortal God was replaced with the mortal
god, the Leviathan. Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651) is often cited as a watershed
in political theory. I would argue that this is because he was the first
theorist to successfully reduce God’s role in political authority and
establish the political community as a workable alternative as a source
of authority and credibility.Like Grotius, Hobbes envisioned a State of
Nature. Unlike Grotius, he found in this pre-government condition absolutely
no laws, natural or otherwise: “Where there is no common power, there
is no law.” This did not mean there was no God, or that God did not possess
the requisite power to establish and enforce laws if he so chose. By providing
man with reason, God had already done all he needed to do.567

Where did political
credibility come from, however, if God was absent? Hobbes’s answer required
an examination of how government emerged from the State of Nature. In this
State, man had only his nature and his reason. Although life in this condition
was nasty, brutish, and short, every man possessed God-given reason, which
suggested a solution in “convenient articles of peace, upon which men
may be drawn to agreement.”568 Still, this “contract” lacked an enforcement
procedure. These precepts, “without the terror of some power to cause
them to be observed, are contrary to our natural passions.”569 For Natural
Law theorists of the Middle Ages, the solution was God who, through His
power and the power He bestowed on the state and the church, could monitor
and punish any cheaters. For Grotius and Pufendorf, “sociability” did
some of the work, the Natural Laws in many instances could enforce themselves,
and government did the rest. For Hobbes, however, a civil government must
carry the entire burden of enforcement.

Therefore, enforcement
of the contract that created a common power required men to voluntarily
reduce all their wills to one will and transfer that power to one man or
one group of men.570 This newly created sovereign enforced the agreements
in the original contract and, therefore, worked for the peace and defense
of every person. Hobbes called this sovereign the Leviathan, or the “mortal
god,” who served in the role traditionally assigned to God.571 The Leviathan
took on all of the transcendent qualities of God. The Leviathan inherently
possessed credibility because it was a voluntary creation existing for
the security of the people. Without it, life once again became nasty, brutish,
and short.

The Birth of
Federalism

The descent
back into the dangerous chaos of the State of Nature was so horrific that
once sovereign authority was in place, it could not be questioned or removed.
Until the contract was signed, no political community or commonwealth existed.
At the moment of agreement, the commonwealth and the Leviathan came into
existence simultaneously.572 Quentin Skinner argues that, in Hobbes’s
theory, “the legal person lying at the heart of politics is neither the
persona of the people nor the official person of the sovereign, but rather
the artificial person of the state.”573

However, this
statement seems to mask the reality that, throughout the Leviathan,Hobbes
insinuated that it is the “official person of the sovereign” who acted
on behalf of the “artificial person of the state.” The people were
not permitted to usurp this position. In short, the legitimacy of the political
community itself depended on the existence of the ruler. While the origin
of the government ultimately came from the individuals (the multitude),
its legitimacy did not depend on that group’s continuing consent.Where
then did its legitimacy come from? It derived primarily from three places.
First, it came from the fear of plunging back into the anarchic State of
Nature.Fear could strengthen the contract and could be generated through
the government itself and from religion.574

Inasmuch
as the government used religion to avoid the collapse of society, it was
just.575 Second, the government’s legitimacy emerged from the obligation
willingly accepted by each member of the political community at the signing
of the original contract. Third, since reason authored the contract, reason
and “science” also legitimated it. To Hobbes, science was how human
beings gained knowledge and reason was the act of gaining knowledge. The
only purpose for pursuing reason and science was the “benefit of mankind.”576

Thus, the contract
itself existed for mankind’s benefit and was thereby legitimate. Hobbes
did not believe that reason needed any further justification than itself.
The additional step of “God” was redundant and, hence, unnecessary.
In a sense, Hobbes brought theories of political authority “down to earth.”
A ruler’s authority did not trace back to God or Natural Laws, but to
reason and the conditions that necessitated the formation of the government.
It may even be said that he “secularized” political authority. Inasmuch
as his theory replaced God with a “mortal god,” there was a great deal
of secularization. However, we should be careful about making Hobbes more
radical than he actual was. Political authority still appropriated the
credibility of transcendent entities. Hobbes also retained God as a backstop:
“This is the generation of that great Leviathan (or rather, to speak
more reverently, of that mortal god) to which we owe, under the immortal
God, our peace and defense.”577 The idea that the political community
possessed inherent credibility seduced practitioners who sought an escape
from the negative consequences of Godbased authority, justification for
changes in international relations practice, and an alternative source
of transcendent credibility that could be managed, manipulated, and sold
to the people.

Grotius, Spinoza,
and Hobbes believed theories that made political authority less dependent
on God solved many of Europe’s most pressing problems. Critics, however,
stressed that, if the fundamental laws of nature developed from reason
alone, God’s role in the world ceased to be that of divine legislator
and became, at best, observer from afar.578 In other words, the political
and theological implications to these theories were closely linked. Although
some in Europe embraced this essentially deistic vision of the world, the
vast majority were not willing to accept it. Thus, while Grotius and Hobbes
managed to move God further from the center of theories of political authority,
neither was ultimately successful in shifting the source of legitimation
to another entity. Grotius transferred it to the natural laws and Hobbes
pushed it onto reason. Neither of these possessed sufficient means of motivating
a population to comply with the ruler’s commands. Spinoza seemed to recognize
this and suggested that two different theories should operate simultaneously:
the rational members of society should adopt Grotius’ and Hobbes’ theories
(for they are “True”) and the commoners should continue to be guided
through older theories, which although false, were very useful for generating
compliance. The problem with Spinoza’s policy was that it failed to solve
the condition of religious dissent that sparked these discussions in many
societies. What was needed was one inherently legitimate entity that all
persons in society would believe as credible in the absence of God. This
was provided in the concept of the political community.

Calvinist Theories
of Resistance

During the early
modern period in Europe, the use of the notion of a “political community”
centered in largely on Calvinist theorists. These writers were significant,
Quentin Skinner argues, in that “they separate sovereignty from sovereigns,”
but they “make no comparable distinction between the powers of sovereignty
and the powers of the people.”579 Like the proto-nationalists discussed
in the last chapter, they saw political legitimacy as originating in God,
passing through the people, and ultimately resting on the ruler. Unlike
the proto-nationalists, however, these Calvinist theorists attempted to
increase the separation between the ruler and the people. The ruler was
not the embodiment of the political community, the “people” were. On
the issue of resistance to rulers, these Calvinist theorists veered away
from John Calvin, who insisted that, according to Romans 13, God commissioned
all earthly rulers and no person could justly raise their hand against
what God had put in place.580

However, many
Calvinists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries lived in circumstances
in which obedience to Calvin’s interpretation could mean the eradication
of Calvinism altogether. Thus, these writers examined the Scriptures, sure
that the reform Calvin had instituted possessed the right, even the duty,
to protect itself legitimately from tyrants and heretics. In the end, they
developed the concept of an independent “political community,” which
evolved alongside the strand of thought of Grotius and Hobbes, but with
a complementary outcome. While Hobbes and Grotius edged God out of the
formula of political authority, they failed to find a practical alternative.
The Calvinists, most notably Johannes Althusius, George Lawson, and John
Locke, established the political community as an inherently credible alternative
in its own right, distinct from both God and ruler, but piously attempted
to do so without minimizing the role of God in the least.

In the wake
of roughly seventeen years of overt war between the Catholics and Huguenots
of France, an anonymous Calvinist published Vindiciae contra tyrannos (1579).
The Vindiciae was an attempt to expand the reasoning of Calvin and Romans
13 in such a way that it remained Scriptural (and thus authoritative),
yet also contained conditions under which resistance to authority would
be just. Its’ solution was an insertion of “the people” between God
and the ruler in the formula of political authority: “it is the
people that establishes kings, gives them kingdoms, and approves their
selection by its vote. For God willed that every bit of authority held
by kings should come from the people.”581 In this case, so the author
of the Vindiciae argued, the king’s continued persecution of the Huguenots
demonstrated his inability to do his job and it was the responsibility
of the “people” to correct the king. Thus, from this perspective, the
true rebels were not the Huguenots, but the king who refused to step down.

There is a greater
distance between the people and the ruler in this theory than in that of
Bodin and Hobbes. Power transferred to an employee is delegated, not alienated.
But, from where do the people get their authority? Here the Vindiciae only
implied answers. It could not be all French people, because the Huguenots
were a very small percentage of the total population and could not have
mustered the necessary support in an assembly to oust the king. The Vindiciae
implied that the “people” were the Calvinists themselves.582 John Calvin
argued that the elect, meaning those God predestined to receive grace,
stood in a position to help instruct the reprobate, or those God predestined
not to receive grace. The elect clearly belonged to the Huguenots and,
therefore, it was they who spoke for all the people through their representatives.583

The aims of
the Dutch Calvinist Johannes Althusius differed fundamentally from those
of the author of the Vindiciae. The Huguenots needed a theory that could
motivate and legitimate resistance, while the Dutch Republic of the final
decades of the sixteenth century needed a theory that could produce selective
obedience and submission. He required a theory that, among other things,
justified the independence movement of the United Provinces, yet also prevented
discontented individuals from encouraging further dissolution of this new
political entity.584 To resolve this,Johannes Althusius based ultimate
political authority on small associations. In Politics Methodically Set
Forth (1603), Althusius asserted that sovereignty rested not in the people,
but in the people as members of associations.585

If the basis
of authority rested in the larger state (ala Bodin), the United Provinces
had unjustly broken away from the Holy Roman Empire; however, if authority
resided with the people, created.586

The creation
of a higher level of association does not in any way abolish associations
at a lower level. In Althusius’s writings, the task of the highest level
of political association is simply to prevent tyranny. The inferior magistrates
of the people can withdraw authority from a ruler who attempts to use powers
beyond this narrow purpose.587

This theory
of authority was based on voluntary contracts between associations of people,
not between the people and the ruler. The creation of associations, whether
private or public, was the product of a rational consent among equals and
a passionate “bond” between men.588

These contracts
rested on natural law and natural law rested on God’s authority. The
position of the ruler in this theory was both minimized and made accountable
– exactly where Althusius wanted the Holy Roman Emperor. Thus, Althusius’
federalist theory created a greater separation between ruler and political
community, giving the latter a life of its own. Still, the community remained
an intermediary through which God’s power passed, not an entity that
was credible in its own right. Historian J. Wayne Baker points out that
“Althusius specifically connects his entire political theory with the
religious covenant. In this religious covenant, the magistrate and all
the members of the realm promised to introduce, conserve, and defend true
religious doctrine and worship.”589 This is unsurprising in a territory
that had been in a constant state of war with Catholic Spain for over three
decades. His theory mirrored the organizational structure of Calvinist
national churches that Theodore de Beza had initiated in 1558.590

Althusius’
political model allowed for lots of local empowerment, but he stopped far
short of allowing for political or religious tolerance. Evidence that this
reflected the mood of the United Provinces can be found in the 1619 execution
of Advocate Oldenbarnevelt for his policy of tolerating Arminians. Turning
to England, in 1660 the minister George Lawson wrote Politica Sacra et
Civilis, which more firmly placed sovereignty in the hands of the people,
meaning the community as a whole.591 Calvinist theorists had been unwilling
to do this because of their doctrines of the elect and the strong connection
they conceived between the political and Church organizations.592 Supporters
of the Stuart monarchy also hesitated to make such a radical move because
admitting the people had such authority could be used to justify the beheading
of Charles I. Lawson’s ability to shift his arguments with the changing
political winds enabled him to see political authority through new eyes.

The author of
the Vindiciae and Althusius had argued that the right to resistance rested
in the hands of the people’s representatives. Lawson rejected this.593
The whole people voluntarily had joined together under natural law and
formed apolitical community. With voluntary and unanimous consent, this
community created a coercive power to sustain society. The people retained
“real majesty” and delegated a lesser form, “personal majesty,”
to the coercive power. Thus, the creation of representatives was a delegation
of power that could be retracted at any time.594

Lawson, writing
in the Restoration, designed his theory to examine the past three tumultuous
decades. The people of England created a government possessing multiple
branches, a monarchy and a parliament. If either of these branches were
eliminated, the whole government ceased to exist. According to Lawson,
parliament did not have the authority back in 1648 to abolish the monarchy
because there could be no parliament without a monarchy. The people could
choose to adjust the structure of government, but neither branch could
make such a decision single-handedly. Note how Lawson attempted to
take a middle position. The execution of 1648 was illegitimate because
parliament lacked the power to make such a decision. However, both the
Cromwell government and the newly-restored Stuart monarchy were legitimate
because the people chose to implement each. more coherent version of this
theory had to wait until the Glorious Revolution of 1688 cleared the path
for John Locke to safely publish his Two Treatises of Government.

Lawson’s real
impact on the history of political thought stems from his influence on
Locke.595 It is primarily through Locke that modern political theory derives
the idea that sovereignty always rests in the people. Locke argued for
a theory of political legitimacy founded on the consent of the members
of the English nation, but which also retained the credibility of God to
supplement this credibility. Locke had an enormous impact on the founding
constitution of England following the Glorious Revolution. King William
III found in Locke’s ideas exactly the political theory that would solidify
his authority despite the “revolutionary” context of his crowning.
596

To do this,
Locke’s Two Treatises of Government first had to refute Robert Filmer’s
Patriarcha of 1653 (reissued in 1680).597 Tory politicians and clergy in
the last years of the Stuart monarchy favorably read Filmer’s statements
of support for absolutism in the monarchy. Filmer’s theory rested on
the analogy of the state as a family: because the king is the father, political
obligation is analogous to paternal submission.598 Locke’s refutation
accepted this well-accepted notion that the state is like a family and
the accompanying analogy between political obligation and paternal submission
within a household. However, Locke viewed this obligation very differently.
The male parent was not absolute. Children are the property of God, created
by Him, and entrusted to parents for proper care and training. Once the
child reached an age of reason and understanding, the young adult was free
and considered an equal of the father.599 The parent’s authority only
continued with the voluntary consent of the child.

Having used
Filmer’s own analogy to set a new standard for political authority, Locke
followed many of his fellow seventeenth-century theorists back to a State
of Nature to understand how and why people first consented to create a
government.600 Locke argued government was not “natural,” but was a
human creation designed to secure property rights.601 The only truly “natural”
thing was the “law” of selfpreservation. People would occasionally
misjudge what actions would preserve them and which would destroy them.
These “inconveniences” could effectively be solved with the creation
of a civil government. This was done when men “agree[ed] together mutually
to enter into one Community, and make one Body Politick.”602

Just as Locke
took sovereignty away from Adam and gave it to the people, he did the same
with property.603 God entrusted the world “to Mankind in common” for
life and convenience.604 A person said something was “mine” if he mixed
his labor with the stuff in nature. However, all property ultimately belonged
to God – it was only temporarily entrusted to the individual. The competition
for property produced disagreements between individuals, one of the most
prominent “inconveniences” a civil government should solve. Government
began with a two-step process. In the first phase, a group of free individuals
consented to put themselves under obligation to each other and submit to
the majority. This act transformed the disparate group into a united community
– a “people.” In the next step, the community decided to erect specific
political institutions and select personnel to exercise their authority.
Like Lawson and contrary to Hobbes, Locke saw this as a delegation of power,
not alienation. The institutions of government could completely dissolve
(step two above), but sovereignty still remained in the people thanks to
their original compact (step one).605 If the government was not doing
its job (i.e. protecting property) or if it began to act contrary to its
purpose (i.e. confiscating property), it declared a state of war on the
people.606 Thus, people don’t rebel, governments do. The author of the
Vindiciae indicated that such a state of war could only be declared by
the magistrates of the people, but Locke bestowed this judgment on the
people as a whole.607 Locke also turned the concept of “the people”
against a William Barclay’s version of divine right of kings.608

Barclay had
argued that if a king set himself against the commonwealth, the people
as a whole could defend themselves, but they could not attack the monarch.
Barclay used the standard argument of hierarchical arrangements: “an
inferior cannot punish a superior.” But, in very extreme cases and in
very specific conditions, Barclay argued that the parliament could rightfully
remove the authority of the king. Locke again followed Lawson in his response:
once the king set himself against the commonwealth, any relationship of
inferior and superior the Constitution in Scotland and England: A Comparative
Approach to the Glorious Revolution,” Journal of British Studies 38(1):
28-58. ceased to be, so Barclay’s argument collapsed. In such cases,
the people as a whole were the judges of right and wrong.609 Of course,
God was the final judge, but He encouraged the people to be industrious
and pursue justice on their own. Since government existed to police violators
of the Natural Law, every government action had to conform to natural law
and reason for the government to be legitimate. God was the author of both
natural law and reason. Locke argued that this meant the government had
no business involving itself in confessional or doctrinal arguments about
God. The theological disputes between Calvinists, Arminians, and Catholics
were private concerns, not public ones. This is why Locke argued in Letter
Concerning Toleration (1685) that a state should tolerate all religions,
but not atheism.

The Eighteenth
Century: Bringing the Two Strands of Thought Together The Hobbesian and
Lockean strands of thought described above developed somewhat separately
for many years, but over the course of the eighteenth century they began
to merge into a single theory of political credibility. This was done,
in part, through a theoretical transformation of religion that jettisoned
the metaphysical source of God, but which retained the crucial function
of social cohesion. According to a new group of thinkers, the traditional
religion of Europe should be set aside for “natural religion,” or a
religion that depended on reason rather than superstition. This new form,
however, did not generate the same degree of passion among followers –
a

When the atheist
denied God existence, he undermined the bases for government (natural law
and reason).This concept
of “separation of church and state” was institutional only, however.
Organized religion should be distanced from government, but God should
be brought closer. Government should stay out of religious disputes, but
it should be intimately involved in the morality of its citizens. And there
was no doubt for Locke that God, not reason, was the source of this morality.
In The Reasonableness of Christianity, Locke claimed that “human reason
unassisted failed men in its great and proper business of morality.”611
On the other hand, whether the Eucharist changed form or just remained
bread was irrelevant for government. Thus, Locke sought to avoid the religious
disputes that had produced wars and civil wars, but he also kept God firmly
in control as the ultimate source of legitimacy and credibility.612

543 At the heart
of this debate is the idea that there was a “modern school of natural
law,”meaning specifically a conscious project by, in particular, Grotius,
John Selden, and Hobbes, to combat skepticism and demonstrate the validity
of a natural law based on reason and self-preservation.Proponents of this
view include AP D’Entreves (1994 [1951]), Richard Tuck (1987), and JG
Schneewind (1998). On the other side of the debate are those who argue
that Hobbes’s project was completely different than that of Grotius and
any connection is incidental rather than consciously developmental. Scholars
on this side include Perez Zagorin (2000), Johann P Sommerville (2001),
and Annabel Brett (2003).

545 Richard
Bonney (1990), The European Dynastic States, 1494-1660 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press): 181-83. The subsequent Dutch reaction in 1619 to the
Arminians and anyone who dared to support them led to the execution of
Oldenbarnevelt and the flight of Grotius to France. There is no indication
that either of these statesmen professed Arminian doctrines themselves.
Their policy of toleration was likely intended to present a united Protestant
front against the constant threat from Catholic Spain, CG Roelofsen (1990),
“Grotius and the International Politics of the Seventeenth Century,”
in Hugo Grotius and International Relations, Hedley Bull, Benedict Kingsbury,
and Adam Roberts, eds. (Oxford: Clarendon Press): 95-133

546 It had enormous
effects on some of the clergy in France and among the Jesuits – missionary
to China Matteo Ricci, in particular. Further, The Jansenist movement eventually
emerged speaking out against such a theology and the casuistry that came
to be associated with it. Peter N Miller (2000), Peiresc’s Europe: Learning
and Virtue in the Seventeenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press):
102-29.

547 Grotius
directly addressed theological issues in two works, Defensio fidei Catholicae
de Satisfactione Christi and De imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra,
both written in 1617 in the midst of the Arminian controversy, though only
the former was published at that time, Richard Tuck (1991), “Grotius
and Selden,” in Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1750 (Cambridge:Cambridge
University Press): 511-14.

548 Hugo Grotius
(2005 [1625]), The Rights of War and Peace, Richard Tuck, ed. (Liberty
Fund). The famous line of the Prolegomena is known as the etiamsi daremus
sentence, which translated means “even if we should concede…”, here
meaning that even if we should concede that God did not exist. It should
be noted that Grotius was not the first author to present such an inherently
heretical argument. The Spanish Scholastics had also considered such a
question, not to mention the rising neo-Stoical movement, both of which
had an influence of Grotius’ arguments, Schneewind 68.

550 God did
not reveal these Laws to man, but man was compelled by his nature to use
his reason to understand and obey these Laws. However, some people would
not obey these Laws. Thus, civil governments had been created to compel
those people to obey.

552 This idea
had also been used in a similar way by the sixteenth-century Spanish Scholastics
(Molina, Suarez, and Vitoria) in the early years of colonization, though
these theories depended more on the direct authority of God than Grotius’s
did.

553 It is for
this same reason that Grotius’ theory succeeded at the international
level, at least among European political units. Each political unit possessed
individual rights against the others in an international society. Political
units outside of Europe were not seen to possess the same rights as European
political units. Edward Keene (2002), Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius,
Colonialism and Order in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press). This is also the reason why Grotius’ theories have experienced
a revival in the late-twentieth century as they closely mirror concepts
of Universal Human Rights and global organizations such as the United Nations.

554 Noel Malcolm
(1991), “Hobbes and Spinoza,” in The Cambridge History of Political
Though, 1450-1700, JH Burns, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press):
550.

557 “Men must
necessarily come to an agreement to live together as securely and well
as possible if they are to enjoy as a whole the rights which naturally
belong to them as individuals,” Ibid.,202.

558 Optimistically,
Spinoza said that it was almost possible for the ideal world to exist if
a government successfully held the real world at bay. Of course, he also
recognized that governments frequently acted in such a way to prevent a
person from pursuing his best way of life. In particular, a government
could impose one religious confession on all the people and try to coerce
them to believe a particular set of doctrines. When it acted in this way,
government became self-defeating and unstable, Michael A Rosenthal (2001),
“Tolerance as a Virtue in Spinoza’s Ethics,” Journal of the History
of Philosophy 39(4): 535-57. Still, this was not a justification to disobey
the government, “for, if government be taken away, no good thing can
last, all falls into dispute, anger and anarchy reign unchecked amid universal
fear,” which was clearly worse, Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise,
249.

559 God’s
decrees “do not receive immediately from God the force of a command,
but only from those, or through the mediation of those, who possess the
right of ruling and legislating. It is only through these latter that God
rules among men,” Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise, 248.

560 Ibid., 249.

561 Samuel J
Preus (1989), “Spinoza, Vico, and the Imagination of Religion,” Journal
of the History of Ideas 50(1): 71-94.

562 “We all
know what weight spiritual right and authority carries in the popular mind:
how everyone hangs on the lips, as it were of those who possess it,”
Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise, 252.

566 There was
also a further psychological advantage for the educated elite: by understanding
and following Spinoza’s theory, one became the superior in society, thereby
affirming and perpetuating the already existing hierarchical arrangement.
Applying different theories of political authority to different classes
of society became generally accepted among Conservative movements in Europe
over the next two centuries, Don Herzog (1998), Poisoning the Minds of
the Lower Orders (Princeton: Princeton University Press): 89-139.

567 God designed
human nature and gave man reason – this is all man needed to follow .
For Hobbes, Grotius’ argument that God both designed and enforced Laws
was redundant. Scientific methodology demanded starting with the most basic
premises and no more. Hence, God did not need to be involved in worldly
affairs for this theory of political authority to be valid.

568 Hobbes,
Leviathan 109. The articles of this agreement would be considered by other
philosophers as “Natural Laws.” Hobbes did not view these as “laws”
in the traditional sense, but merely precepts that reason has shown individuals
were necessary for their own security, Quentin Skinner (2002 [1990]), “The
Proper Signification of Liberty,” in Visions of Politics, Volume III:
Hobbes and Civil Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 217.
Although they were human inventions, they did not depend on individual
personalities. These precepts applied to all people at all times, thus
they should be considered “natural.”

569 Hobbes,
Leviathan 139.

570 Ibid., 142.

571 Ibid., 142-43.

572 Hobbes,
Leviathan, 142; Quentin Skinner (2002 [1999]), “The Purely Artificial
Person of the State,” in Visions of Politics, Volume III: Hobbes and
Civil Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 196-208. The contract
may be voluntary, but once the dotted line was signed, there was no going
back. In fact, a multitude of men was only a community (or “one” instead
of many) “when they are by one man or one person represented,” Hobbes,
Leviathan, 135. Remove the ruler, and the community no longer existed.
Arguably, Hobbes did not consider the State of Nature and the ensuing contract
an historical event, but only a mental exercise, or reason at work, despite
the fact that there were several contemporary empirical examples of conditions
that paralleled the State of Nature, such as tribes in the Americas and
the international community itself, Richard Tuck (1999), The Rights of
War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius
to Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press): 135-39. Since there was no actual
moment of commissioning a sovereign, this meant that there could be no
actual moment of de-commissioning. The creation of a society required that
each person abrogate his right to nullify the contract. If any person were
allowed to retain this right, the contract would have collapsed, since
everyone at some point had an incentive to get out of it.

573 Quentin
Skinner (2002 [1989]), “The State of Princes to the Person of the State,”
in Visions of Politics, Volume III: Hobbes and Civil Science (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press): 404.

574 Hobbes,
Leviathan, 118. For Hobbes, governmental fear and coercion were not limitations
on individual liberty (after all much of a person’s liberty had been
voluntarily ceded in the contract), but operated as useful means of preventing
complete social collapse – a far greater threat to individual liberty.

575 JB Schneewind
paraphrases Hobbes in this way: “Our mortal god decides what is good
and bad and what is to be believed about the immortal god,” 99.

576 Hobbes,
Leviathan, 50.

577 Hobbes,
Leviathan: 142-43. It has been argued that Hobbes was an atheist and inserted
God and Biblical citations so that his work would not be rejected outright,
Leo Strauss (1953), Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago):
202-32.

579 Skinner
(2002 [1998]), “The State of Princes to the Person of the State,” in
Visions of Politics, Vol. II: Renaissance Virtues (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press): 394. Skinner is referring in this passage to the “monarchomachs,”
but explicitly lists two Calvinist monarch sources: the Vindiciae contra
tyrannos and Johannes Althusius’s Politica.

581 Philippe
du Plessis-Mornay (1969 [1579]), “Vindiciae contra tyrannos,” in Constitutionalism
and Resistance in the Sixteenth Century, Julian H Franklin, ed. (New York:
Pegasus Books): 158. The king is an employee of the people. The Vindiciae
uses the analogy of the pilot of a ship to illustrate the point. While
aboard a ship, the owner will obey a pilot only while he looks out for
the good of the ship. When the pilot no longer can or will do his job properly,
he is quickly fired. The same is true for a king who is not “looking
out for the public good.” Thus, the people, if faced with a king who
ceases to fulfill the job he was hired to do, are also represented by a
parliament or “an assembly with a kind of tribunal authority,” who
may justly remove the king.

582 In particular,
the right (responsibility) of resistance fell to the local or inferior
magistrates. However, the Huguenots tended to be geographically concentrated,
thus their local magistrates also tended to be the elected of the elect,
Robert M Kingdon (1991), “Calvinism and Resistance Theory, 1550-1580,”
in The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700, JH Burns, ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 214; Spellman (1998), 82.

583 This concept
of a political community was used successfully in a few smaller experiments
in Europe – most notably by Theodore de Beza in Geneva and Heinrich Bullinger
in Zurich. Likewise, it helped provide justification for political resistance
among a persecuted church. However, as a practical political theory for
a territory larger than a city it fell fall short.

584 If the basis
of authority rested in the larger state (ala Bodin), the United Provinces
had unjustly broken away from the Holy Roman Empire; however, if authority
resided with the people, resistance of the various provinces to the larger
United Provinces could be legitimately supported.

586 Each level
of association can more effectively fulfill separate tasks, each of which
is necessary to the citizens. The only powers that should be delegated
to higher levels are ones that cannot be exercised as effectively or efficiently
at lower levels. This is the same as the principle of “subsidiarity”
the European Union added to Article 3b of the Maastricht Treaty. Larry
Cata Becker (1998), “Forging Federal Systems Within a Matrix of Contained
Conflict: The Example of the European Union,” Emory International Law
Review 12: 1361-62.

587 Which magistrates
were empowered to act was an important question for Althusius, again, because
he was developing a theory where only some groups possessed this power.
“In his terminology the term magistrate applies to any office-bearer
of the res publica, with terms such as magistratus summus, ephors, optimates
and senators used to distinguish various office-holders from emperor via
territorial nobility to urban council. His writings addressed primarily
inferior magistrates like him,” Robert von Friedeburg (2005), “The
Problems of Passions and of Love of the Fatherland in Protestant Thought:
Melanchthon to Althusius, 1520s to 1620s,” Cultural and Social History
2(1): 94.

590 Local congregations
were associations that came together to form local colloquies and so on,
until reaching the national synod at the apex. Each level was crucial and
each played a different role. The structure was intended to allow local
congregations to control themselves as much as possible. Yet, at the same
time, the structure also protected itself from heresy.

591 It is also
possible to read Lawson as an elitist who argued that “political power
devolves back not to the people but to their natural representatives: the
original forty counts of the forty counties, that is, to the local gentry,”
James Tully (1991), “Locke,” in The Cambridge History of Political
Thought, 1450-1700, JH Burns, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press):
622. Whether Lawson based ultimate political power in the “people”
or in the “local gentry” is indicative of the inconsistency of portions
of his theory – one reason why history remembers Locke rather than Lawson.

592 Lawson was
not a Calvinist, but was a clergyman in the Church of England who adjusted
his position to whatever government happened to be in power, Stuart or
Puritan. This proved to be an effective survival strategy in the English
upheavals of the mid-seventeenth century. It is precisely this“accommodating
attitude” that allowed Lawson to transform and adapt the dominant theories
of political authority in vital ways that John Locke later adopted, Conal
Condren (1992), “Introduction,” in Lawson: Politica Sacra et Civilis
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): xv.

594 Lawson,
writing in the Restoration, designed his theory to examine the past three
tumultuous decades. The people of England created a government possessing
multiple branches, a monarchy and a parliament. If either of these branches
were eliminated, the whole government ceased to exist. According to Lawson,
parliament did not have the authority back in 1648 to abolish the monarchy
because there could be no parliament without a monarchy. The people could
choose to adjust the structure of government, but neither branch could
make such a decision single-handedly. Note how Lawson attempted to take
a middle position. The execution of 1648 was illegitimate because parliament
lacked the power to make such a decision. However, both the Cromwell government
and the newly-restored Stuart monarchy were legitimate because the people
chose to implement each.

595 Julian H
Franklin (1978), John Locke and the Theory of Sovereignty (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press). On the other hand, the most prolific George Lawson scholar
suggests that Lawson should be studied as something more than just an anticipation
of Locke’s theory, Conal Condren (1981), “Resistance and Sovereignty
in Lawson’s Politica: An Examination of a Part of Professor Franklin,
His Chimera,” Historical Journal 24(3): 673-81.

596 Lois G Schwoerer
(1990), “Locke, Lockean Ideas, and the Glorious Revolution,” Journal
of the History of Ideas 51(4): 531-48.

597 Part of
the subtitle of Locke’s First Treatise is “The False Principles and
Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer, and His Followers, Are Detected and Overthrown.”
See also Johann Sommerville (1991), “Introduction,” in Filmer: ‘Patriarcha’
and Other Writings, Johann P Sommerville, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press): ix-xxiv.

598 Filmer supported
this idea biblically, arguing that Adam was the first king and Charles
I was Adam’s eldest heir. Granted, this last addition was slightly strained,
but the king-as-father analogy was easily understood in English society
and carried a lot of weight among many, Johann P Sommerville (1991), “Absolutism
and Royalism,” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700,
JH Burns, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 357-58.

599 The child
could consent to transfer authority to the father, but he could also refuse
to consent to this. The father had the right to hold inheritance as a hostage
to generate consent, but otherwise he had no legitimate power to compel
the fully reasoning adult to submit to his authority. The parent’s duty
to God was fulfilled once the child was raised.

600 Spellman
(1998), 94-97.

601 Filmer had
implied that because Adam was made the first king, government was natural.
There could have been no State of Nature because there were no people before
Adam and, hence, no time when people lacked government. Locke responded:
“Supposing we should grant, that a Man is by Nature Governor of his Children,
Adam could not hereby be Monarchas soon as Created; for this Right of Nature
being founded in his being their Father, how Adam could have a Natural
Right to be Governor before he was a Father, when by being a father only
he had that Right, is, methinks, hard to conceive.” John Locke, First
Treatise of Government, paragraph 17, Locke: Two Treatises of Government,
Peter Laslett, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 153.

602 Locke, Second
Treatise, section 14: 276-77.

603 For Filmer,
both sovereignty and property were given to Adam and passed down through
inheritance.

604 Locke, Second
Treatise, section 25: 286.

605 What made
the contract language of Locke and other English Whigs so important was
that it gave the people the right to decide when a contract was violated.
Thus, the events of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 could be considered
the choice of “the people,” James Farr and Clayton Roberts (1985),
“John Locke on the Glorious Revolution: A Rediscovered Document,” Historical
Journal 28(2): 385-98. This “radical” position was contrasted with
the position of moderates and conservatives who argued that there was no
“revolution” at all: either William legally conquered England (William’s
choice) or James II deserted his throne (James’ choice), Tim Harris (1999),
“The People, the Law, and

606 “Whenever
the Legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the Property of the
People,(1991), “Introduction,” in Filmer: ‘Patriarcha’ and Other
Writings, Johann P Sommerville, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press):
ix-xxiv. 598 Filmer supported this idea biblically, arguing that Adam was
the first king and Charles I was Adam’s eldest heir. Granted, this last
addition was slightly strained, but the king-as-father analogy was easily
understood in English society and carried a lot of weight among many, Johann
P Sommerville (1991), “Absolutism and Royalism,” in The Cambridge History
of Political Thought, 1450-1700, JH Burns, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press): 357-58.

607 One shouldn’t
expect a mass meeting or a vote on whether to resist the government, however.
When people were treated unjustly or the government continually breached
the public trust, people would fight back whether this was right or wrong,
legitimate or not. The fact that the people were so roused to action that
they would fight was a pretty good indication that the government had broken
its trust with the people and deserved dissolution: “The People…are
not apt to stir…. But if they universally have a perswasion, grounded
upon manifest evidence, that designs are carrying on against their Liberties…who
is to be blamed for it?... Are the People to be blamed, if they have the
sence of rational Creatures, and can think of things no otherwise than
as they find and feel them?” Locke, Second Treatise, section 230: 418.
This amounted to a very pragmatic (though circular) solution for the sovereignty
of the people: the people rightfully reclaimed their sovereignty when they
reclaimed their sovereignty. This would rarely happen, according to Locke,
so when it did we should take special notice.

609 “When
a King has Dethron’d himself, and put himself in a state of War with
his People,what shall hinder them from prosecuting him who is no King,
as they would any other Man,” Locke, Second Treatise, section 239: 424-25.

610 “God in
Heaven is Judge: He alone, ‘tis true, is Judge of the Right. But every
Man is Judge for himself, as in all other Cases, so in this, whether another
hath put himself into a State of War with him,” Locke, Second Treatise,
section 241: 427.

611 Locke, The
Reasonableness of Christianity, section 241.

612 Locke scholarship
over the past two decades has emphasized the importance of religion in
his epistemological and political systems. This is a response to two interpretations
of Locke in the 1960s and 1970s that marginalized Locke’s Christianity.
Straussians argued that Locke was really just a Hobbesian; see, for example,
Leo Strauss (1953), “Modern Natural Right,” in Natural Right and History
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press); Thomas L Pangle (1988), The Spirit
of Modern Republicanism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). CB Macpherson
contended that Locke was more concerned about capitalism and private property
than he was about religion, (1962), The Political Theory of Possessive
Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press). There has been
a significant shift in the 1990s and 2000s toward following John Dunn’s
suggestions and returning Locke’s religious background and beliefs to
the center of his political theory: John Dunn (1969), The Political Thought
of John Locke: An Historical Account of the Argument of the Two Treatises
of Government’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); James Tully (1980),
A Discourse on Property: John Locke and His Adversaries (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press); Mark Goldie (1983), “John Locke and Anglican Royalism,”
Political Studies 31: 61-85; Richard Ashcraft (1986), Revolutionary Politics
and Locke’s ‘Two Treatises of Government’ (Princeton: Princeton University
Press); John Marshall (1994), John Locke: Resistance, ReligionandResponsibility
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Kirstie M McClure (1996), Judging
Rights: Lockean Politics and the Limits of Consent (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press); BW Young (1998),Religion and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century
England: Theological Debate from Locke to Burke (Oxford: Clarendon); Jeremy
Waldron (2002), God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations inLocke’s
Political Thought (New York: Cambridge University Press) According to these
scholars,Locke’s theory depended on God. Removing Him would undermine
his arguments regarding equality,property, contract, and consent. Thus,
Locke’s project was very different from Hobbes’s.